Notable & Quotable

Robert A. Caro on the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

July 1, 2014 6:16 p.m. ET

From Robert A. Caro's "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV" (Vintage, 2012):

The cloture motion [for the Civil Rights Act] was passed, by a 71-29 vote, on June 10, after a filibuster of fifty-seven days that was the longest in Senate history. Twenty-three Democrats voted against that motion; forty-four votes from the Democratic side was all it got. But, thanks to Dirksen, twenty-seven Republicans...